Cooking with Plums

Pick the perfect plum and use it as the perfect centerpiece for your next dish.

Assorted Plums on a Platter

Pluck a luscious plum--one, or maybe more than one--and lose yourself in a moment as ancient as time. For Confucius, too, delighted at the bright flavor of a plum's skin as it gives way to the fruit's first juices. And Pompey the Great found the fruit so worthy, he called for entire orchards to be planted in Rome. By the time the historian Pliny took to recording plum varieties, hundreds had been hybridized. Luckily, hundreds still exist. And while all have smooth skin and deep coloring, the similarities stop there. Plums can be large or small, oval or round, sweet or tart. They can be green, yellow, purple, red, or blue. So, this summer, usher your taste buds backward in time. Bake plums into warm farmhouse desserts, such as Plum Buckle, brighten a Cold Noodle Salad with plum pickles, or serve them fresh with wine or soaked in a white sangria to coax forward their complex perfumes. Just be sure to reserve one exquisite plum for later. Tuck it away to be savored, your elbows propped, eyes far away, feet planted on a sun-warmed wooden floor. After all, what better way to contemplate the passing of time and passing of summer than with a plum in hand? Piled high, a painterly array of ripe plums seduces both eye and appetite. Reach for the dusky mauve of a juicy Santa Rosa, the verdant glow of a Greengage, or lift, instead, the exotic scarlet of a plum called Fortune to your mouth. Beauty is more than skin deep.

Plums, Cheese, and Chocolates

In the company of plums:

Spirited

The right wine paired with a ripe plum flatters both. Soft reds, such as zinfandels and Shiraz, balance plums that are sweeter, such as Yellow Egg and purple Friar. For tart plums, try gently perfumed dessert wines, such as a light, slightly sparkling Moscato d'Asti or an orange-scented Muscat de Baume-de-Venise.

Savory

Cheeses, particularly those with buttery, rich flavor, complement plums in much the same way as cream is lovely with berries. Here, Castelrosso, a cow's milk cheese from Italy's Piemonte region, is served, but silky Camembert and triple-cream, mousselike Saint Andre make equally good partners.

Preserved Plums

Pick and Choose

Press a plum gently at its equator. If it yields to pressure, then it's ready to eat. Softness at its tip and stem end also mean it's ripe. Avoid hard plums and any with shriveled, brown spots or broken skin.

Best Kept

Ripe plums can be refrig-erated for up to four days. Plums are best when ripened on the branch, but under-ripe plums can be made softer by storing them at room temperature, stem-side down, in a single layer. Though softened, they won't grow sweeter, so use these for baking, roasting, or grilling.

Fruit Salad with Plums

Gemlike slices of red and purple plums reveal other facets of their beauty. Toss the pieces with honeydew melon, kiwi fruit, and sliced grapes in a simple herb-infused syrup for a refreshing breakfast-as-dessert. To make the syrup: Bring a sprig of rosemary, a 1-inch piece of ginger, and 1 cup each of sugar and water to a boil and let steep for one hour. Strain and cool the syrup. Toss about 3 tablespoons of syrup with about 1 3/4 cupes of mixed diced fruit and chill. Serves 2. Store the syrup refrigerated in an airtight container for up to three weeks.